Vampire Shows & Films to sink your teeth into

emFilm & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

Over the course of the 2020s, vampires have regained the kind of foothold in pop culture that they once had in the heyday of Twilight. As a lifelong vampire enthusiast, I’m personally thrilled about this development — especially when so many offerings are so delightfully queer.

But the truth is that vampires have a long queer history. In fact, the trope of the “lesbian vampire” arguably constitutes some of the earliest instances of queer-coded villainy in both literature and film, for better or for worse. Setting aside the question of whether or not such coding is good representation or not, vampire media is just way more fun when it’s gay.

Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice, & 150 Years of Gay Vampires

>We’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite queer vampire movies and TV shows. Read on if you dare. Read on…

History’s Gayest Vampires

emBooks & Magazines, Film & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

Interview With the Vampire is one of the most influential vampire stories ever told, and also one of the gayest. Originally published as a novel in 1976, the book spawned 12 sequels, a wildly successful film (and one less-successful one), graphic novels, a Broadway musical, and now a TV series – each one dripping with blood, debauchery, and fanged monsters whose passion for each other spans centuries.

But this tasty tale didn’t just spring into being by itself. The saga builds on queer vampire stories going back 150 years, through exploitation films of the 70s, early motion pictures, and Victorian novels full of forbidden gay encounters with creatures of the night. So, where did Interview with the Vampire come from, why was it such a hit, and how did an aspiring writer’s scandalous debut novel change vampire stories forever?

Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice, & 150 Years of Gay Vampires

Queer horror TV to get into the Halloween mood

emFilm & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

It’s Halloween time… and if you’re trying to get into spooky mood, there’s nothing better than a good (and queer) horror TV show!

Chucky was created by Don Mancini, a gay man, and several of the films feature queer characters and themes, including Chucky’s child Glen. In the recent Chucky series, the main character is a queer teen boy named Jake. Throughout the series, Jake and his boyfriend fight against the possessed doll.

Chucky (2021) | TV Series Trailer | Chucky Official

One of the best comedies on TV, What We Do in the Shadows, is also one of the gayest. Matt Berry plays Laszlo Cravensworth, a pansexual and hedonistic vampire, and Kayvan Novak plays Nandor the Relentless, who is also bisexual, and is currently in a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship with his former familiar Guillermo, played by out actor Harvey Guillen.

What We Do in the Shadows | Season 6 Official Trailer | FX

The new TV adaptation of this classic novel turns up the gayness to 100. AMC’s Interview With the Vampire stars Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, two vampires and lovers. If you want horror that’s dripping in gay sex, this is the show for you.

Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire - Official Trailer (2022) Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid

Read on for more queer horror shows…

First look at Lestat rocking season 3 of Interview with the Vampire

emFilm & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

Attention Lestat fans! AMC has finally teased The Brat Prince’s rockstar era. Back in May, fans were finally treated to the second season of the beloved supernatural drama based on Anne Rice’s critically acclaimed Vampire Chronicles book series.

Picking up after the events of season one, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and his pseudo-daughter Claudia (Delainey Hayes) head to Europe after they seemingly put an end to their maker, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid).

Meet the Vampire Lestat ft. Sam Reid | Interview with the Vampire | New Season | AMC+

While searching for other vampires, the two stumble upon Armand (Assad Zaman) and the mysterious immortal acting troupe, Theatre des Vampires, in Paris, France. Louis and Claudia’s entry into the coven is fraught with challenges as they grapple with Lestat’s haunting memory and the treacherous power dynamics of the vampire world.

Read on…

Interview with the Vampire renewed for 3rd season

emFilm & TV Leave a Comment

With Season 2 still winding down, we’re already heading back to the bayou for Season 3 of Interview with the Vampire. AMC has confirmed queer bloodsuckers Louis and Lestat will be back in the recently renewed series.

The first two seasons largely followed the plot from the titular first novel in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Set in New Orleans in the 1910s, newly made vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) is taken under the wing of his maker, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid). Lestat leads Louis reluctantly into a hedonistic lifestyle, culminating in the pair turning and caring for vampire child Claudette (Bailey Bass/Delainey Hayles).

As the title suggests, there is a frame narrative in which the modern day Louis recounts his life story to interviewer Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), which is subsequently published as a fiction book. But whereas the novel series featured noted homoerotic undertones, with bloodsucking acting as a metaphor for sex, the TV series has brought that subtext out of the closet and onto the screen. In the AMC version, Lestat and Louis are explicit (if toxic) lovers.

Read on…

Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire is here!

emFilm & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

Why do queer people love horror? The thrill of the genre is universal. People from all over the world, of all genders and sexualities and races, love to watch horror films. But there’s something to the genre that specifically lures in LGBTQ+ folks.

There is a rush in getting scared, in wrapping one’s head around the unimaginable, and looking fear in the eye behind the safety of a screen. It’s escapism and emotional waterboarding combined, a mirror reflecting the darkest desires of humanity — and ourselves. And it’s fun. Why else would the Babadook be a gay icon?

Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Official Trailer | Premieres May 12 | AMC+

Vampires are queerer than most monsters. They seduce us, quite literally, for our blood, and don’t typically discriminate on gender. Look at Dracula, the Queen of the Damned, Edward Cullen, What We Do in the Shadows, or even the outlandishly homoerotic Interview With the Vampire film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Heterosexual? Uh, sure. But there’s just something so queer about them.

Read on…

First look at season 2 of “Interview With the Vampire”

emFilm & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

Interview With the Vampire fans rejoice: AMC released the first trailer and images of the second season of the bloodthirsty drama. The second season of the TV adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel was first screened at New York Comic Con 2023.

The show stars Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones), Sam Reid (The Newsreader), Delainey Hayles (Something In The Closet), Eric Bogsian (Succession), Assad Zaman (Hotel Portofino) and Ben Daniels (The Exorcist).

Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire Season 2 - Official Teaser Trailer | Comic Con 2023

The new season will see Louis (Anderson) and Claudia (Hayles) travel to 1930’s Europe after destroying their maker Lestat (Reid). In Paris they meet Armand (Zaman) and the immortal troupe at the Theatre des Vampires.

Read on…

They made Interview with the Vampire SO gay

emFilm & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

Almost thirty years ago on Saturday Night Live, late Weekend Update anchor Norm MacDonald famously swatted down 1994’s Interview With the Vampire with one chief complaint: “Not gay enough!” Even back then, the dripping homoeroticism between the story’s lead characters, played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, was impossible to ignore.

If only Norm could see AMC’s new Interview With the Vampire TV series, which, unlike the 1994 movie and the classic Anne Rice novel it’s based on, goes all in on the electric, chaotic gay romance between vampires Louis Pointe (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), with a levitating gay vampire sex scene that I cannnot stop thinking about.

The pilot (titled “In Throes of Increasing Wonder”) wastes no time in establishing the wonderfully maximalist queerness at the show’s center. Still framed around the titular interview between journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) and Louis, the latter spends the first episode explaining how he first connected with his creator/lover/messy ex in early 1910s New Orleans.

Read on…

AMC’s Interview with the Vampire looks super gay

emFilm & TV, Film & TV Leave a Comment

Just in time for spooky season, the television adaptation of the homoerotic classic Interview with the Vampire is hitting AMC Plus on October 2. Unlike the (still titillating) film adaptation of Anne Rice’s classic novel starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, the series looks like it will skip directly past subtext and deliver full-on gay text.

Interview With the Vampire Season 1 Trailer

A new trailer (only available in the US & Canada for whatever reason) for the series introduces us to vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), who is being interviewed by a journalist played by Eric Bogosian. Rather than being set in the late 18th century, as was Anne Rice’s original novel and the 1994 movie, du Lac’s story begins in 1910. He meets Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) in New Orleans, who tells him, “I know who you are, sir. We’re destined to be very good friends.”

Good friends is certainly one way of putting it, as we’re quickly shown a steamy threesome between the two men and an unnamed woman just a few seconds later. Then we’re shown Lioncourt and du Lac kneeling in a church together, as the former bites the latter’s neck, turning him for good.

Read on…

AMC drops new trailer for ‘Interview With the Vampire’

emFilm & TV, Film & TV 1 Comment

Many fell in love with Interview With The Vampire after watching the 1994 film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, but the beloved book series by the late Anne Rice is one that has brought joy to many fans throughout the years.

Titled The Vampire Chronicles, the books follow the life and stories of Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt that is being recounted in the first book between Louis and a reporter. Now, AMC is developing the story into a new series, and have just released their first trailer.

Interview With the Vampire Season 1 Comic-Con Trailer

Read on…